Real Estate the Ramsey Way - How Do I Deal With Investing FOMO While Saving for a House?

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

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Dave Ramsey here and welcome to another episode of Real Estate, the Ramsey Way, where you'll learn how to make smart home decisions, avoid costly mistakes, and navigate homeownership with confidence. Riley joins us now in Seattle, Washington. Riley, how can we help? Hey there, it's time for me to save for a down payment, and I use a Ramsey trusted pro who wants me to stop contributing to retirement to get intense about storing cash. cash. This gives me some fomo about missing compounding and just turning retirement off. Do you have any thoughts? I mean, if you're truly on Baby Step 3B, it's your choice if you want to do both

simultaneously or if you want to take all of that money and really hammer the down payment hard for the next two to two and a half years. What's the horizon? How long is it going to take to save your down payment if you had all the money going towards it? Yeah. So I could probably do it within a year if I got really intense. And that's his idea is stop doing things at the same time. How long would it take? And what do you, like are you in a hurry that I must have a house in one year?

Or are you fine to take the two year route? Well, what's tough is it's so expensive in Seattle that, like, like waiting seems like prices will just continue to go up. So I would like to get intense. I just kind of need some encouragement to have a year where I don't contribute anything. Okay. So you want to do the year plan. Yeah, I would just say that at the end of the day, you have to remember these are both investments.

So mentally we think, oh my gosh, I'm not investing. I'm giving up investing to get this house. And what's helped me and what did help me when I was in your shoes is to remember real estate is also an investment and it's a forced savings account for your future, right? So once you buy this house, you're saving up this down payment. All that is doing is creating equity for when you buy the house. And so don't think of it as I'm not investing. Think of it as I'm kind of diversifying in this way. I've got money going that's going to go to my 401k for retirement. And then I'm also investing money into this primary real estate venture. Does that help? Yeah, absolutely.

Like I'm just, instead of investing in one area, I'm doing it in a new area that I'm just not used to. That's right. The other thing is, is I play around with some numbers and just do real math. Look at trends in the Seattle market over the last 30 years. What is the percentage? There are people that the market has gone up on average over a decade. What are the experts saying? Like, right now, I know that I can go online and I can get a good guess.

on what home prices look to be, will they go up in 2026 in my county? And so we're talking about 12 months difference. In other words, if you go all in, pause investing for 12 months, there's an amount of money that you anticipate being able to save, correct? Yes. Yes. And then if we say, all right, if I didn't pause investing and I saved over a 24-month period, what would that amount of money be?

I think you know what that number is, correct? Yeah. Okay. So then look at what do I think housing, based on the market and whatever I can look at, how much do I think housing prices are going to be that much different in the difference of 12 months? I'm just saying I would look at all of this and not be like, oh, my gosh, you know, it's going up, it's going up. And in all reality, it's not going to go up as much as you think in two years. So now you're looking at the difference of one year.

So as you're making this decision, I'm just giving you some food for thought. Does it make sense? I'm not telling you what to do, but I'm just telling you to have all the information, get all the numbers out. And let's be educated about what we're doing here, because you may not have to pause investing. Yeah. And unfortunately for the area, it's like $200,000 for down payment is my goal. And that just seems like an insane amount of money.

Yeah. But if I waited, then maybe it will be, okay, now you need $240,000. and these are not incredible homes. It's just the market here. Right. And then if you think about that $40,000 across those two years, you have to ask yourself, okay, is that worth? Saving $40,000, is it worth what I would have made investing that extra,

I don't know how much you're saving monthly for this? But that's really the equation that you're looking at. The amount that you would be putting towards your down payment monthly, instead of investing it, would that money invested outpace what you project to be the increase in the real estate market? Now, saying that... And that's the tough piece because we don't know... We don't know.

You could probably find some realistic projections out there. You could probably find some realistic projections out there. I personally, I, Jade, probably would not nerd out to that extent because there's two things on the line. It's a question of values. You have to go, okay, how much do I value? having this house. What's it going to give me? Is it going to give me stability? It's going to give me a little bit of diversification in my investments because, you know, this is probably not your

forever home. At some point, you'll probably sell it and you'll make some money and that sort of thing. I'm giving you that equation because you might like to nerd out on it. I personally would not. I would just look at this and go, you know what? How quickly do I want to get this done and out of my life? I value doing it faster than I value putting aside the extra money in retirement, so I'm just going to do it. or I just really love the way it feels to invest this full amount, so I'm fine with it, right? It's totally up to you. There's not a wrong or right answer on this. Yeah.

Is this your first home? Yes, it will be. And how old are you again? 36. 36. Is it just to you? Are you single? Yep.

Okay. Any plans to settle down? I mean, I like my area. I could easily. And the biggest thing is the commute. I mean, I could afford much more, but driving an hour each way would not be very fun. By the way, right? I agree with you on that.

That's a quality of life issue. That adds up really quick. My point is, I'm not trying to get into your relationship life, but I am saying if you plan to settle down at some point, that person may have and should have some say in where you're going to live. and at 36 and single, not ready to settle down, doesn't sound like to me, which is fine. I'm just giving you, if I'm sitting in your shoes, I'm probably going to take, I'm going to save up more and I'm going to take my time. I'm not going to try to rush in the next 12 months. I wouldn't, knowing what I know about you. Maybe get my goal, but then not purchase right away.

No, I'm just saying what you gave us was, should I pause my retirement investing and go all, all in and take that money and put it into Baby Step 3B. I thought that was the question. Correct. And I'm saying in your situation, I would not pause investing. I would just keep investing and keep saving. Yeah, because he's not in a situation where I feel like he needs to rush to settle down in a place to live. He's single.

I'm okay with renting in his situation. Huh. You know what? I'm just the opposite. I'm like, if there's not a lovely lady in the picture, it would be one thing if you're like I'm dating someone. We're getting serious. I'd be like, ah, wait, you guys can do this together. But if there's no one in the picture, I'd be like,

let me get this house before this real estate market goes up. And you're talking to a guy who's older and understands the power of that investing. And I'm just like, I wouldn't rush to buy if I were you. Certainly not in Seattle. Two different opinions. So you get to do what you want it. That's right. It's your call, Riley. And you're

a smart guy. You're doing the right thing. Love the question. Do what feels best for you on this. You're not going to screw it up. That's right. Yep. Hey guys, thanks for listening to Real Estate the Ramsey Way. Now, if you're here, you're probably thinking about buying or selling a house. It's exciting, and one of the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make.

But you don't want to do it with an inexperienced agent who will rush you into costly mistakes, like the ones some of our callers find themselves in. You need a pro who knows what the flip they're doing and will keep you on track with your financial goals. That's why we only recommend Ramsey trusted real estate agents. These are vetted, hand-picked pros who actually listen to your needs, guide you through the process, and fight to get you the best deal. To find a Ramsey trusted agent near you, go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash trusted agent. That's ramsysolutions.com slash trusted agent. We're going to talk to Stephanie here in Las Vegas.

Stephanie, how can we help today? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. Sure, what's going on? So my husband and I can't agree on a budget for buying a house. How can I convince him to up our budget? Oh, juicy. I have the back on it, so if you want it. Well, yeah, you got to lay the case out.

You got to pretend like George and I are Supreme Court judges, and we got to hear the facts, because we don't know who's right, who's wrong. And you're telling us, I want help making the case to up the spend on the house. So break it down for us. Okay, we're currently a single income military family, but my husband will be retiring in the next two to three years, and that's when we'll be buying a house. After my husband retires, we'll have dual income,

plus we'll have his retirement check. So we'll be making a lot more money than we're currently making. And over the last 18 years, we saved a good amount of money because we're frugal, both of us, and we've earmarked about $300,000 as like a down payment. My husband wants to buy a house, basically all in cash and is only concerned about the price. So he doesn't care about the area that we live in or that with that budget, the house is most likely going to be a fixer-upper.

I, on the other hand, would like to put as much money as we can as a down payment, but I'm opening to having a larger mortgage of about $150,000 with the mindset that we pay it off as quickly as we can because we're frugal and we'll have that additional income. The math comes out that our mortgage would be less than 25% of our take-home pay at that time. And my concern is that I want a good school district for my kids and a good area for us to live in. And I'd prefer a house that we don't need to put a lot of work into because we've lived in some crummy places being in the military the last 18 years. And so I just want to settle down and have a nice house that we can relax and enjoy. That all sounded so reasonable.

So where is he coming from that he is frightened by the idea of, I don't know, a $1,500 mortgage? I don't know. We as adult, like our whole adult life since we've been married, we've never had any debt at all. We've never bought a car and took out a loan on it, like any of that stuff. So I don't know if it's just that we'd be taking a large loan and we've never owed money before. When you say large loan, you mean the $150,000. Yes, the $150,000. I mean, that's large to us. And what would the payment be? You've done the math. Is it about $1,500 on a 15-year-fixed? It would be. $1,500, yes. Okay, and then your take-home pay would be $6,000, $8,000 a month? Yeah, our take-home pay would be a little over $8,000 a month. Okay, so this is all very reasonable.

It's all green flags as far as the Ramsey parameters. I think the part we need to compromise on is you going, hey, we're going to have an aggressive plan to pay this thing off early. So if you said, hey, we're taking on this $150, we're going to knock it out in two years. Would he say, okay, great? I don't know. I know that he's just very concerned about that amount of money, and I don't know if it's from growing up, like, childhood money issues, or if it's just such a large amount. Sure.

Well, this is not a consumer debt, so we're not going to put it in the category of this as stupid. We're always going to encourage 100% down if you can. But if this is something where, hey, three years from now, we need to buy a house. If you want to wait a year and just keep stacking cash and get even closer, that might be a good compromise, too. But I don't like this idea that unless we have the cash, we're not going to do this at all or we're going to get a fixer up. Okay. Yeah, you're on my side. So, yeah, I'm on your team.

The question is he needs to be willing to come to your side a little bit. Okay. There needs to be a little bit of negotiation so he can feel like, all right, I want a little bit. And that's the part I want to address. So, Stephanie, based on what, you know, you talk with George, what do you think is the emotional hold up. In other words, what do we need to address with him to where he goes, oh, I'm not giving into my wife. I actually see it the way she sees it. There's something that's holding him back. What is it specifically? I think that he likes to be in control with money and just like in general

being like the leader of the house. I don't know. And so like having no control, I like feeling of not having control because we owe this money. I think that's part of his like hang up that but can I tell you what's behind that? Sure. Fear. Right. And have you guys had a conversation about this where it got tense or has it all been pretty chill? Oh, no.

I mean, we've talked about this for probably two years now and we literally cannot agree. So this has been a two-year discussion in our household. No, he just shuts down the conversation, basically. Oh, that's tense. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, when someone, when the other part of the marriage, shuts the other one down. That's tense. I don't care how it's done. It's still tense. I think you're going to have to sit with him and go, hey, I want to understand. I'm not trying to

convince you anymore. We've gone round and round and round, but I do want to understand. Okay. I want to understand. And you can blame George and I. You called us up. You know, if you don't think that's going to upset him because it's not like three. What it can't sound like is three against one. Well, I told him I was calling you guys. And how did he say? How did he feel about that? He said, okay. He said hopefully they take my side. Okay, great.

Well, here's what you can say. Here's what George said. And then you could say, Ken took your side. But Ken didn't take your money side. Ken took your emotional side. Okay. And I mean this. And here's where I'm going.

He is allowed to be fearful. He is allowed to, because there's something in his past. that shapes the way he views money and where he institutes control. And I don't, and I appreciate what you said, like, he's got to be the man of the house. That's not what it is. It comes across probably his bravado, but that's not what it is. He's a scared little boy, and I'm not insulting him.

I'm telling you, as a guy who's had to deal with control issues, once I got to the fact that it was about fear of something, and then I had to dig deeper and go, what was I afraid of? and it goes way, way, way back. And so on some level he has that. So the reason I'm telling you that is not to judge him or belittle him, but for you to have some empathy for him and then compassion toward his point of view. And when you sit with him and walk through his point of view as the counter to all your points of you, and you go, I totally understand that.

What if I told you that this, you know, and you, then you take George's layout. George, I want you to come and tie a bow on this, but that's what I'm hearing. Yeah, I feel that. I definitely validate his feelings and I go, oh, you're crazy. That's not going to help anything. Are you guys living for free right now? Well, we have like a BAH, so we pay rent out of military money. How much is the rent?

The rent right now is $3,000. And he's okay with that? I mean, no, but we're in a high cost of living place, and our BAH is exactly $3,000, So it's basically us just paying what the military gives us for housing. But basically we're trading $3,000 in rent for $1,500 mortgage that you're actually going to own. Right. So I think that's part of the math. The other part of the math is home prices are a moving target.

If you waited, you were like, let's 2019. We should wait until 2022 to buy home. Good luck. That house is now 50% more. And so the longer you wait, the more expensive this decision is going to become, which is why I tell people, when you're financially ready, which you are, you're following the Ramsey plan to a T, go ahead and get the house, and then pay it off aggressively. Throw $4,000 a month at it if you want, knock it out in less than three years. You guys set the plan, set the goal.

I've got a homework assignment. Christian, I don't put her on hold. Christian guide her on how she can get to YouTube and pull this segment up, and I think they need to watch it together. Watch it together. Because we had no skin in the game. We're actually for you guys figuring this out in a very good way because I think it is a good move.